Survival
by AnnaScheele
Summary: After the Deatheaters attack Hogwarts, Ron and Draco find themselves lost and alone. Forced together in a hostile world, can they trust anyone, let alone each other? *SLASH*


****

Survival

_AnnaScheele_

Pairing: Ron/Draco

Rating: R for violence, language and slash

Warnings: This contains scenes of mass violence that may be upsetting

Disclaimer: Not mine

Notes: Hmm, well, I don't know if people will love this or hate this, but please let me know either way. 

{}

When Ron wakes up his head hurts. The room is dark, and the floor cold. For two glorious seconds he cannot remember why he's here.

Then he remembers, everything…

__

There is nothing to see, the spells are invisible.

But they try and duck, nonetheless. Children run, screaming, crushed into a trembling mass, the heads of the taller ones just visible - glazed over with panic, with terror.

Pettigrew smiles, and indicates to the Deatheaters to move on.

All through the Great Banqueting Hall of Hogwarts the bodies are strewn, limp. A few teachers are still standing, fighting or ferrying the children out through the escape routes that have not been blocked. A fireplace has emerged by the dais and hands sticky with cold sweat clasp floo powder as they are shoved in and sent away. 

'Go! Just go! Don't wait for anyone, go!'

Where are they? What's happening? No time for any of that.

A hand grabs Ron, and he tries to fight, because he can't see Harry. Hermione is on the other side of the Hall supporting Fred, who looks injured. Where's George? No sign of Neville either. Ron can't go without them; he can't leave them here. 

It pulls him insistently and he moves, stumbles, stumbles over…shit. That's Cho Chang on the floor, and she's…oh shit. He vomits.

'No! I won't go! Harry! Fred!'

But Hagrid's grip is iron, and Ron is bodily lifted into the fireplace. He can barely see for tears, blood is in his eyes and he has no idea whose it is. The floo powder kicks in, and everything blurs until he remembers to walk out, and falls onto a cold board floor, banging his head on the fireplace.

He lapses into unconsciousness.

Ron feels the grief in his stomach as though he had been punched. The room is silent, no sounds of other travellers.

That doesn't mean they're…all it means is that they didn't choose this fireplace. Of all the exits on the Floo network it's unlikely that most stayed on long enough to go in here. With withering hope he looks up.

And sees him. 

'Malfoy'

The other boy looks blankly back, then down at his own stained robes. And they both stay in silence, remembering, hypothesising. 

Neither will cry in front of the other.

{}

But he has to stop remembering now.

Ron stood up as soon as he snapped back into himself. Draco stayed sitting, Ron realised the other boy had fallen asleep. The room was now dark, save for a dim light provided by a street lamp outside. No curtains. 

For the first time he wondered where they were, why no one had walked into the room. A cursory glance out onto the street explained - 'For Sale. Three bedroom Semi.'

Then he looked up and down. They were in a house; he realised, on a Muggle street. There were cars and motorbikes in the drives, no sign of elves or gnomes or broomsticks.

'Malfoy! Hey!'

Draco stirred and jumped, scared. Ron bit his lip, he couldn't * be * sympathetic right now, he had to stop that, stop anything warm inside. Because then he'd go back there again, and he couldn't do that right now.

__

'Malfoy! Do you know where we are?'

'No. I was shoved in early on and I was still in shock. I forgot to look out for a place I knew. You arrived after about ten minutes. I thought you knew where you were going'

Ten minutes? That long? He'd spent that long in the Hall? It had seemed shorter and yet he remembered more.

No. Stop.

'Sorry to disappoint you, but I have about as much idea as you do'

'You really are useless aren't you? What's through the window? Is there a street name?'

'Look for yourself, I'm not your servant'

Draco gave him the finger and gazed out at the street. 

'Well what's this? What are these people doing? What are those things?'

'What? Oh, that, that's a post-box'

Blank face staring at him.

'It's a Muggle thing. We're among Muggles, Malfoy'

The look of shock and disgust on the other boy's face was horribly clear. 

'I can't stay here, not with…those. Is there any more floo powder?'

'I already checked. I'm not totally clueless'

'Could have fooled me'

Being here with Draco, Ron found, was…soothing. Nothing kind could be said. They could argue about pointless things like they always did. Nothing had to change here.

Nothing had to be said.

'What about the Knight Bus?' Draco's tones were clipped, unhappy. It was evident that he rated talking to Ron barely above talking to Muggles.

'If it comes here it'll be around soon, it's pitch black out there. We wait, I guess'

'I'm hungry'

'Poor you' Ron's tone was anything but sympathetic. He felt a sudden urge just to leave, to walk out and go anywhere, just run away from Malfoy, from the memories, from it all. 

But how could he leave anyone after…that? How could he be unkind to anyone that had also been through it?

Don't think about it.

'There may be food in the house' he suggested.

'Muggle food? Are you attempting to be funny?'

Still sniping at each other they searched. Ron, (whose experience of Muggle cuisine was slightly less than he made out) pointed out that they had to eat, regardless of the origin of the food.

But there was no food in the house anyway. Nothing at all besides some polystyrene cups and something metal dumped in the garden that neither of them could identify.

'What time is it?'

'I don't know' Ron snapped back. 'Why do you keep asking me these things like I have the answers?'

'Your father was the bloody Muggle artefacts minister.'

'What do you mean 'was'?'

Wrong topic.

Draco flinched and started to walk back into the house. Both boys jumped as a harsh, screeching voice cut across the air.

'Oi! You boys making the racket! What do you think you're doing there? Young vandals! People are trying to sleep! I'll call the police, I'm warning ya!'

They ran inside and, finding the door locked, opened the front window to escape. They sprinted off for several streets until they ran out of breath.

'That was clever!' Draco's tone was deeply sarcastic. 

'Wha..What?'

'Think about it, Weasel. Do you remember where that house was? Now we have no way of getting back to the only chimney that we know of round here on the floo network.'

'Shit' He could have pointed out that it was as much Draco's fault as his own, but somehow he didn't have the energy any more. He sat down on a garden wall, put his head in his hands and sighed. 

A church clock started to strike. 

'There you go, Malfoy, three am'

'I can count, thank-you' Draco was perched on the wall as well, some distance away. He looked - smaller. Here, without his status, without his henchmen, he was just another boy like Ron. But smaller, two months younger, and with even less understanding of how to survive in the Muggle world than Ron had. 

Ron drew in a long breath. 'Well, what shall we do? The Knight Bus obviously isn't coming?'

'Why, I wonder?' Draco kept his tone level. Ron shivered, he hadn't thought of that. Why wasn't the Knight Bus is operation? What had stopped it? 

No. Don't think it. Something else, someone else…

'I know!' Ron felt stupid for not having thought of it before. 'We can ring someone, on the - thingy - telephone!'

'And who would you ring? What is a telephone anyway?'

Ron explained briefly, and as accurately as he could manage. 'There's the Durseleys - they look after Harry, but they'd hang up at once. We can ring the Grangers. Hermione's parents. They may know…'

'What are a pair of Muggles with a little mudblood going to know about anything?'

'They might know if she's fucking * alive *' Ron hit a nearby tree in frustration, trying to suppress the rising grief that threatened to return. He couldn't do this. He couldn't. He was just Ron Weasely. What was he supposed to do? 

Draco reached out his hand, then thought better and dropped it again. 

Ron suddenly turned, anger breaking through everything else. 

'Malfoy, you bastard!' Ron ran forward and shook him, shouting through his sobs. 'Why didn't you warn us? Why did you let it happen? See this?'

Draco recoiled from the hand thrust towards him, covered in dried blood. 

'See that? That's my friends' blood, Malfoy. How the fuck could you let this happen? How could you? Why? Why? Why?'

His voice trailed away. The next question was practically a whisper. 

'Why, Malfoy? Your Father must have known.'

'I suppose he must have'

'Then why…?'

Draco turned his head by a few degrees and shrugged. 

'Oh' Ron understood - Draco * didn't * know about this. His father knew there would be a massacre at Hogwarts, and didn't tell his only son. 

'Oh'

The two boys sat a little longer. Then Ron almost involuntarily leant his head a little, and rested it on Draco's shoulder, and Draco leant slightly as well and they stayed that way, drifting in and out of sleep, for the next three hours.

Neither of them was truly there. Both absorbed into memories, fantasies, hypothetical situations. And their treacherous bodies, uncaring of the cold relationship, had sought out each other's warmth.

There is nothing else on Earth that they can usefully do. 

'We'll call tomorrow' Draco whispered, when Ron was recovering from a particularly bad set of dreams. 'They won't wake up to answer now anyway'

'Huh? 'kay, Draco' Ron murmured. 

A smile slowly spread across Draco's face. Then he checked it and closed his eyes. 

He could be unconscious for another hour or so before it had to be tomorrow.

__

Part two will arrive soon, there will be about four parts to this series


End file.
